That early bird. Or: New habits – Part I

Posted on 01/05/2016

Don’t we all have some new habits that we would like to integrate into our daily lives? May that be eating, sleeping or exercise habits. And there are lots and lots of gadgets and apps trying to help us establishing a new routine. But at the end of the day it comes down do our own discipline and willpower.

Concerning me, meditation has been on top of my “habits-i-want-to-add-to-my-daily-routine”-list for a looong time.

The glorious goal of a daily meditation practice

I love meditation groups, I love guided meditations but was hard for me to do it on my own for a long time. Daily. So far my daily meditation practice was limited to a maximum of 15 minutes sitting after my yoga practice. I used to go regularly to guided meditation classes for dynamic meditations and i really enjoyed them. Best way to start a monday. But since I am not a student anymore, I couldn’t go there anymore. But hey, perfect timing to install my own daily early morning meditation.

Let me describe you myperfect morning:
Getting up at 5:00, doing some gentle stretches and starting with some pranayama. Then, I let it smoothly glide into a japa-vipassana-like meditiation. At 6:00 I start my asana practice until at least 7:30. Then I shower and have breakfast. At 8:30 I would be ready to leave the house focussed and totally centered. That is a total amount of 3 1/2 hours me-time in the morning. And it would be even more if I prepare my food for my day ahead.

This is still in my dreams.

So how’s reality?

Since starting a new job about a year ago, I’ve managed to get up at 6:30 and meditate until 7. Thus my asana practice is only 30 minutes in the mornings which resulted in me sometimes going to classes after work in the evening, which is something I haven’t done a lot in the last year, so that is a refreshing change as well. I also practice a lot on the weekends with online plans and classes from codyapp and yogaglo. Still, I miss my 60-90 minutes asana session in the morning, which was easily possible with my last job.

It’s been almost a year now I can honestly say:
It’s still hard getting up earlier than I “have to”. But it is amazing getting up as early as I would like to. It is not easy, although my body really likes getting up at the same time every day. I noticed during last week that I always woke up before the alarm rang.
And oh dear, early morning meditations rock.

What I didn’t consider first is that changing one habit includes a whole lot of other changes which just start to follow somewhat naturally (more or less 😉 ).
Meditating in the morning forces me to deal with my sleeping habits oh boy. But I’ll save this for my next post.

Related

A graduate in both Celtic and Scandinavian studies having a huge interest in eastern practices like yoga and meditation. Making music with her harp and flutes, writing stories and reading books on almost everything from anatomy to fantasy novels are things she loves as well. She's trying her best every day to live a conscious, compassionate and colourful life.

You Might Also Like

1 Comment

Bernhard

02/05/2016 at 09:07

Practicing Yoga in the morning for at least 30 minutes … I already did that and somehow it slipped away. Reading this is a good motivation to start it again. After all it is daily routine where change really begins … 3 1/2 hours in the morning is a tough goal but definitely worth it.

About Me

vera_agnes

I'm a a lover of life and a humble navigator of this whirlwind-experience we call living based in Vienna, Austria. I believe in changing the world into a better place with small steps everyday by practicing kindness and compassion. On this blog I'm sharing bits and pieces of my yoga, my reading and my life, which I make by teaching yoga and selling meditation cushions.